France, the United Kingdom and Spain broke records for daily infections of the COVID-19 before the advance of the omicron variant which led Ecuador to decree compulsory vaccination.
In the UK, a record close to 120,000 new COVID-19 cases were recorded on Thursday. The increase in seven days is 50% and the number of hospital admissions begins to grow, especially in London.
A situation in hospitals that is observed with great attention: “Because it will teach us a lot about the seriousness” of the disease caused by omicron, said Arnaud Fontanet, of the council that advises the French government.
Scotland announced the closure of nightclubs on Thursday. For England, the Boris Johnson government is putting off the toughest restrictions as long as possible, based on two studies showing a lower risk of hospitalization with the omicron variant compared to delta, which was dominant until recently.
The situation in France is also getting worse. On Thursday, the record of positive cases in one day since the start of the pandemic was broken, 91,608 infections according to the government. The previous record dated from November 2020 and was 86,852.
Spain also beat a maximum number of daily infections, with 72,912 cases.
The director of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Europe, Dr. Hans Kluge, stated that “omicron is becoming dominant in countries such as Denmark, Portugal and the United Kingdom, where the numbers double between every day and a half or three days”.
Confinement in China
A few dozen cases of coronavirus in Xian (North China) were enough for the Beijing authorities to close this city in the name of their “zero COVID” policy. From now on, its 13 million inhabitants must stay at home “except for imperative reasons.”
Although far from the 120,000 daily cases in the United Kingdom or 70,000 in Spain, China is committed to a virus eradication strategy, especially a month and a half after the Winter Olympics in its capital.
This variant already constitutes 73% of new infections in the United States.
Faced with this situation, the Spanish government, which has one of the most widely vaccinated populations in Europe, announced on Wednesday the reestablishment of the mandatory use of the mask outdoors.
Greece also announced Thursday that wearing a mask would be mandatory indoors and outdoors during the holidays and all public Christmas and New Year holidays have been canceled.
The new variant has already been detected in 18 countries and American territories, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) indicated on Wednesday when announcing that that continent had exceeded 100 million cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic.
The latest data from this organization point to a decrease in infections in Central and South America, but instead there was an increase in the Caribbean.
Mandatory vaccination in Ecuador
In Ecuador, vaccination against COVID was declared mandatory for the population from the age of five due to the omicron variant, the Ministry of Health reported.
He argued that the decision to declare compulsory vaccination against COVID in the country is framed in the Constitution, which establishes that the State must guarantee the right to health.
69% of the 17.7 million Ecuadorians have received the complete anti-COVID vaccination scheme.
And Chile, with more than 86% of the population fully vaccinated, announced that it will apply a fourth dose of anti-COVID immunizer starting in February, starting with the most vulnerable groups.
The US drug regulator approved Merck’s anti-COVID pill, a day after it gave the green light to a similar one from Pfizer.
Less serious but more infectious
The Swedish-British laboratory AstraZeneca said that a third dose of its vaccine “significantly” increases the level of antibodies against this variant.
Despite this, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus cautioned against the illusion that booster doses would suffice to overcome the pandemic.
“They could even prolong it rather than end it, by diverting available doses to countries with high vaccination rates, thus giving the virus more possibilities to spread and mutate,” he added.
The highly infectious nature of this new variant can neutralize its apparent lower severity, since its rapid spread increases the number of infected people.
And although it is spreading rapidly, studies conducted this week in South Africa, Scotland and England provide some hope as to the severity of the cases.
According to an analysis by the British health security agency published this Thursday, patients infected with this variant have between 50% and 70% less risk of being hospitalized compared to the delta.
The world has registered more than 5.3 million deaths and more than 276 million cases of COVID-19 since the end of 2019, according to a balance established by AFP from official sources this Thursday.
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